Category: Weight Loss journey

Women don’t lift, women run and do yoga or pilates, women take fun Zumba classes and do Soul Cycle classes, right?

While all of these other exercise classes are fun and I have done at least one of all of them in my lifetime, they come along with the assumption that … Women Don’t lift!

Now I bought into this myth that “women don’t lift because they don’t want to bulk” for years, I was scared of the bench press (okay lets be real it still scares me a little) I was scared to pick up weights that were heavier than 10 pounds and weren’t pink or purple. I was scared that I would do just what I was avoiding, bulk up!

But then when running wasn’t accomplishing anything for me in the weight department, I was the same size and I was bored out of my mind while running, I have never been a very good runner and running distances just made me bored. I started researching weight lifting, Mr. was made for weightlifting his body was clearly designed to lift heavy things, so he has always been good at this at the gym. I found Adrianna Osuna on Instagram and started researching powerlifting, and looking at body shape instead of only focusing on the shape.

She inspired me to pick up not only her book about her nutrition and weight lifting programs but to also pick up the darn weights! And let me tell you, lifting weights that weren’t pink or purple and weighed more than 10 pounds was scary at first, but it feels damn good! I feel strong and my body looks and feels good!

I am officially under 200 pounds!!! Which has been my goal for over a year I started out at 230, the heaviest that I ever was and have been trying everything from the Whole30 to be vegetarian and nothing made me feel or look as good. I am sitting at 195 pounds and I feel great, I am getting my hourglass shape back and feeling good!

So enter the next problem … since you know women don’t lift right, there are NO good weightlifting apps designed for women, I found one that says designed for women and if you are anything more than a beginner you have to pay over 100 dollars for . the year! Now my husband has his pick of 10 FREE weightlifting apps that will identified his body type and help him find his one rep max and work through how much he should lift each time and how many reps he should do, progressively getting heavier working the correct muscle groups each day, but for me I get to use 1 . app that was actually designed for males but has some women’s fitness, it doesn’t help calculate how many pounds I should be lifting each time or when to increase weight, I am on my own. So then I downloaded the nike training app, more of the same for the women I got body weight exercises and yoga, . .. I DON’T WANT TO DO YOGA!

So again I turned to Adrienne’s, surely there has to . be a powerlifting program for women out there, I can’t go to a class or crossfit, and seriously I shouldn’t have to because women can lift things okay. And sure enough she had her own program, that helps me increase weight find my one rep max and speaks to me like WOMEN ARE STRONG AS HELL! Because we are, so stay tuned for lifting progress pictures updates and PR’s because!

FEMALES ARE STRONG AS HELL!

Here is me, reminding myself that “I am enough!” and feeling super great in my clothes last Fri-yay!

Everybody Poops. .. Yes this I know my mom is a nurse and I worked as a CNA throughout college I am well aware of all things poop. I have heard all the poop on the wall, people playing in it stories, I have cleaned out colostomy bags, I have aided 106 year old women in pooping because they didn’t have the strength to push it out themselves. I have cleaned poop from the elderly and children. Poop is essentially my friend at this point.

However pooping has never been something I have excelled at, if it is something you can excel at even, I did not! I can remember going whole weeks without going, not even once. But then when I need to go it generally hits me like a freight train I have to go NOW. And I have become ok with this system I can handle it.

But now I have started running and poop I must, in the middle of a freaking run. This urge has become a routine of my run, now I am just working to try and figure out a way to get this urge without doing what I know my marathon runner friends have done and squat on the side of the road. I am just trying to make it to a bathroom and get back on the road.

I have tried going directly before a run but the above mentioned fact that I in fact do not excel at the pooping has made this difficult, so anyone else have any other ideas? How can this poop failure get through her runs without messing her pants?

So I have been running fairly consistently for about 10 months I started last January in order to find a new one to get in shape for my wedding in August, I had always hated running when I was younger, I played sports I was very active and in shape, but ask me to run two miles straight forget it!

Friends from high school still joke about the time our senior year of high school our volleyball coach decided we needed to start every practice with a 2 mile run and I looked like I was dying EVERYDAY! So for me to set out and start running on my own, —-> A very big deal.

But it worked, we live 2 blocks from a park I could get up and run anywhere between 1 mile and 3 miles all in the park and be happy, I didn’t get very fast but I was getting somewhere. Then my wedding happened, it was glorious and wonderful, we ran a 5k that week and I felt like I was looking good, feeling good, in much better shape than I had been 10 month ago, but after the wedding we were in our happily married bliss and I stopped going on runs consistently we spent a week, ruining our clean eating in Mexico and it was harder to get back into it when we got home.

This last month I have noticed my husband really getting into it, and you know what, I want to too! I loved the way running made me feel, not during the run that still feels like dying but afterwords I felt strong, accomplished, like a runner, something I never thought I would be.

So on my HORRiBLE run today, ( I set out to run 3 miles I only got through a mile and a half) I decided I was going to run a 10k probably next Spring, hopefully by May. So here it goes, I have to run 2 5k’s for different reasons in November and by next May I will be running 6.2 miles I have decided, and once it is decided it is done, right?

So I downloaded the 5k to 10k app, and I will listen to the little trainer in my ear tell me when to walk and when to run and I will keep putting one foot in front of the other until I can run for 60 minutes straight like the little trainer wants me to!

0) It is AWKWARD! . . At first. . . you are going out where other people can see you, putting on your running shoes and trying to run.. trying being the operative word. . but it gets better and then you stretch farther, before you know it you are that girl doing her BURPEES and push ups on the park bench where everyone can see and some random guy in a truck is going to honk and whistle at your ass in those same running pants you weren’t comfortable in 1 month ago. .

And ok ok I know objectifying women is bad, but when that man honks at your fine looking ass, that is doing those squat jumps on the side of the road. . . take it as a win.

1) I am slow. . ..

I mean SLOW. . . but that doesn’t stop me I keep putting one foot in front of the other!

2) The distance around the park is the same for everyone! I may be slower than molasses but when i make it all the way around that park I have ran 3.2 miles just like the guy that passed me way back on mile 1 that I never saw again.

3) Girl that looks like this just may kill her, the hunched back turtle run. . Girl I feel you! But look at you, you crawled out of bed this morning at the butt crack of dawn just like the rest of us and there you go. . .you are running! You Go Girl!

4) Fast or Slow we are all in some sort of sick club. We somehow have tricked our bodies into thinking this is fun and now we are in this together. When you pass that same elderly man on the same curve around the park everyday you do the half nod and you both know, you got this. When you see the mom pushing the double stroller and you think hell I can barely drag my own weight up this hill let alone another human beings and all of their stuff! But you know, you are both pulling for each other and together you got this.

5) Not everyday is race day. So yeah some people on this 3 mile loop may have to run that loop 12 times to train for their upcoming race. And some of us are just barely making around 1 time. But you know what, those people running 12 times around all started somewhere, they may have started long ago, but everyone of them made that first 3 mile loop and felt like a total badass just like us.

6) YOU ARE A TOTAL BADASS!

Let’s just be clear the person that ran that 1 loop or half a loop or that first mile you are a badass! just as much as that man that runs a marathon for a warm up! So strut your stuff and let the world know.

7) Treadmill running is just not the same. . . and I don’t mean in difficulty, running on a treadmill makes it seem like some sort of competition compared to the person next to you, out on this trail every more feels like a community, a silent, crunching by community. You are connected to all the other people that have ran on this same crunchy trail!

8) It isn’t all about speed or distance. choose one! When I first started running I thought I had to run fast and run far, and for about 2 months I couldn’t run any farther or faster than I could when I started, I was trying to do too much at once. So I started concentrating on distance and not speed. . see number 2 (distance is all the same) a 12 minute mile is the same distance as a 6 minute mile.So I started increasing my distance weekly and am now I can run a whole 2 miles farther than I could during those first 2 months.

9) It isn’t all about the scale .. I have lost about 30 pounds since January 2015 and that seems like a huge deal to me! But really the fact that I can run 3.5 miles without keeling over is so much more important. You may not see a huge difference on the scale all the time, but hell you are getting stronger, faster and those are the things that matter, the scale and the weight will come!

10) You don’t have to be in LuLu lemon or some other fancy running clothes to be a runner. If you are putting your feet out there and moving you are a runner. Your clothing doesn’t dictate that. But I will go with the splurge on the running shoes theory. Mostly because your feet will thank you!

11) Everyday is a fresh start. Ok yesterday’s run sucked, it was half as far and took twice as long as it was supposed to. Or you had to walk before the schedule walk time. But today is a new day and you are gonna kill it. And guess what even with yesterdays run as your starting point . . .YOU ARE STILL A BADASS!

So we finished our Whole30 on Monday and boy am I glad! We are taking a week long break, and then moving into the Pretty Much Paleo phase of our lives, I keep saying that Pretty Much Paleo and I keep promising I will write more about it, and I will . . . I promise! But I just love the way it sounds so I like to mention it as often as possible!

So did Whole30 change my life in 30 days?

Well yes and no, I think that it changed my perspective on things some, not completely and I like that I lost 10 pounds and inches that I haven’t measured but our visible even in these pictures. I guess you could say that it changed my perspective because I am going to become pretty much paleo, but I am going to allow myself more freedom in what I do indulge on. It will not a be a strictly NO anything, life for me ( Ok except Soda, because those 250 empty calories are just never worth it in my mind) I am going to make myself my Paleo Parmesan Chicken ( my favorite recipe from the Whole30) and enjoy a nice cold beer, or 3 tonight and feel no guilt about it. I am going to be more conscious of the food choices I am making while understanding that they are just that, choices! I have the choice to have ice cream after church, but I also have the power to sit in the Ice Cream Shop and drink my water and enjoy good company. I have the choice, no matter how much I want that piece of cake, I don’t have to have it.

So this shift has been good, but I still love cake, and whoever says that these foods stop tasting good after the Whole30 days, what did you do? Because cake still tastes like a slice of heaven in my mind, and those Crispy M&M’s that are making a comeback taste like 8th grade!

I am very happy with the physical results of the Whole30 and hope to maintain this weight and possibly loose 10 more pounds over the next few months, we will see, I have to get my weight loss in before my dress fitting so we will see how much more happens.

But most of all I am proud of my running.

I have always hated running, I played volleyball in high school, sprints, shuffles, wall sits, drills I could do, but on distance running days I was miserable. But I could do it. I remember during those years each year for try outs we had to run a mile in under 12 minutes I can remember thinking, “Damn that is slow, I could walk a mile in 12 minutes.” And now I am just happy to be running a mile at all, no matter how long it takes, and let me just tell you when I started running this year it was no where close to in 12 minutes.

I started running in January, and at this point it was mostly walking with some minutes of running in there. By the time I got to the Whole30 in March I could run 3 solid minutes without stopping and I felt pretty damn proud of it!

Now after the Whole30 I have consistently been running for 10 minutes, then walking for 2, running for 5 and then working my way down from there. Running over 2 miles in 30 minutes. Which still clocks me in at about an average of a 14-15 minute mile but I am running. And I am PROUD!

I have friends that are training for their 2nd or 3rd Marathon and some that are training for their first 50k, (who the hell does that), they will post pictures to instragram of their 20 mile runs on the weekends, and I am over here all I ran a mile without stopping!! I don’t even care how it looks to them, pathetic, whatever I am proud! This is an accomplishment for me.

I can feel those 20 pounds that are gone, I feel lighter when I run, I feel like I look more like a runner when people see me and it feels good. I am beginning to be one of those people that enjoys running, something I was almost proud not to be before, now I can clear my head as I go over the hills and the turns, or even as I feel the treadmill move under my feet, I am getting better.

So there it is, my whole30 transformation, did it change my life in 30 days. . . Why don’t you tell me?